William James Center for Consciousness Studies

The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology established the William James Center for Consciousness Studies in 1994 to serve as a research center for the Institute.
 
The Center is named after William James, eminent American philosopher and psychologist. William’s brother was the eminent novelist Henry James, his sister Alice left her own literary mark, and their father was Henry James Sr., an affluent and cosmopolitan world traveler who was interested in philosophy and religion, including the teachings of Emmanuel Swedenborg.
 
James received an MD from Harvard, and joined the university faculty teaching physiology, then psychology and philosophy.  He wrote Principles of Psychology (1890), still considered an outstanding introduction to the field, and which included extensive writing on consciousness and the self as the center of psychology.  In 1902 he published Varieties of Religious Experience, which was a pioneering treatment of mysticism, conversion, spiritual experiences, and religion from a perspective of psychology, rather than theology.  James was a founder of the American Pragmatism philosophical movement as well.
 
He recognized that conventional assumptions can be questioned and investigated, and often transcended, and he did not hesitate to explore topics that were often ignored, then and now.  James preceded transpersonal psychology in his broad interests in such topics as consciousness, mysticism, spiritual states, psychical research, unusual mental states (what might now be called altered states), hypnotism, and the psychology of spiritual experience.
 
In fact, James used the term “trans-personal” in 1905 to refer to the perception of an object by two persons at the same time, thus making the perception transpersonal rather than individual, a meaning related to the present concept of an expansion beyond the conventional limitations of the self.
 
The WJCCS at ITP supports a broad range of studies of consciousness and the mind in the spirit of William James.  The Center has published a landmark book by Kenneth  Ring, Mindsight, about near death experiences reported by  blind persons, documenting that “visual” experiences occur in these NDE cases and are similar to those of sighted persons.  The Center also holds lectures and seminars for faculty, students, and the public.  The Center sponsored two transpersonal conferences at ITP with international attendance in 2004 and 2006.
 
The Center serves as a sponsor for faculty and students who are seeking funding for research and applied projects.  The Center is intended for cutting edge research that will further the directions charted by William James, and explore the full range and spectrum of the nature, capabilities, and experiences of humanity from a transpersonal perspective.